The billionaire owner of Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk, has announced his intention to launch legal proceedings against the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) for what he terms as “regulatory overreach” by the US regulator. The announcement comes in retaliation for the FAA imposing a $633,000 fine on SpaceX for alleged “regulatory violations” in an act that Musk views as a protectionist measure against SpaceX’s closest competitor, Boeing with its Starliner spacecraft. 

Musk’s latest foray into the spotlight came just a matter of hours after the FAA announced it was imposing a fine on SpaceX relating to three violations across two launches that occurred in 2023. The launch of the Satria-1 mission on June 18, 2023, as well as the XXIV/Jupiter launch in July 2023 both saw violations, according to the FAA.  

SpaceX proposed revisions including adding a new launch control room at Hangar X and removing the T-2 hour readiness poll from its procedures related to the Satria-1 launch, both of which were unauthorized and were not in accordance with license requirements according to FAA papers. 

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